Auschwitz asks Britain for help to preserve decaying death camp

'There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself...and that is if the world forgets there was such a place.'

Henry Appel, Auschwitz survivor

The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where one million Jews were slaughtered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it. The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free) has underlined the vulnerability of the Nazi death camp, stretching over 20 hectares (50 acres) of southern Poland.

“Nobody could have imagined such a horrific act of vandalism,” Jacek Kastelaniec, director-general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, said. “Now try to imagine the public outcry if one of the barracks started to fall down, impossible to restore.”

Auschwitz was built on boggy ground between two rivers; as a result the high groundwater and bad drainage has rotted the foundations. Walls are blistering and starting to lean, roof frames are buckling, plasterwork and wall-paintings are flaking.

Mr Kastelaniec will go to the Cabinet Office tomorrow to press the Government on Gordon Brown’s promise to contribute to a €120million (£110million) endowment fund that will guarantee the preservation of one of the main sites of the Holocaust. Mr Brown visited the camp last April, and, plainly upset by what he had seen, declared: “We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz.” No figure has been suggested publicly for Britain’s possible contribution, but Polish sources say that the conservationists are hoping for about €10million.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said that her country would put up half of the costs, but the managers of the Auschwitz museum need other commitments. Mr Kastelaniec will also visit France, Belgium and the United States. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has sent an appeal to 40 heads of government.

“The conservationists say we need to start work in the next two years if we are to avert irreparable decay,” Mr Kastelaniec told The Times, “and that will only be possible if the money is paid into the fund now.”

The decay of the camp is politically sensitive. The current trial in Munich of the alleged Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk is being seen by the public as the last for Nazi war crimes — the 89-year-old defendant is wheeled into court on a hospital bed. Holocaust survivors are dwindling. “In ten years there will be no witnesses,” Mr Kastelaniec said, “and it will be easier for the crazy people who say nothing happened in the camps.” Only the buildings will remain.

Auschwitz cannot simply have a makeover because that would undermine its claims to authenticity, and open the way for those on the far Right who try to deny or trivialise the Holocaust. The strategic point of the restoration is to use its almost over-powering sense of menace as a clinching counter-argument against anti-Semitism and racism.

The portfolio to be presented to the British Government underlines the vast scale of the camp. The priority is being set on 45 brick barracks. The managers estimate that it will cost up to €890,000 to restore a single barracks building. On top of that come 22 wooden barrack rooms — where inmates were crowded into bunks up to the ceiling. Each will cost €310,000.

Then there are the remains of 210 barrack buildings. Some sheds have collapsed, but there are concrete outlines where floors and chimneys stood. Without some strengthening, these foundation markings will disappear. Cost: €78,000 per barrack room. The 27 wooden guard towers need to be reinforced at an annual cost, for the next 14 years, of €62,000.

Work is under way on conserving the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums, but the managers want to extend this to include a provisional gas chamber-bunker, two other crematoriums and the unloading ramp.

Property taken from prisoners before they were gassed, now exhibited in small piles in the museum, is also showing signs of age: 460 artifical limbs, 40kg (90lb) of discarded spectacles, 260 prayer garments and 3,800 suitcases that belonged to people who ended their journey in Auschwitz.

The sluggish response worldwide to the restoration had been down, in part, to the feeling that the main burden should be on Germany. Mr Kastelaniec said: “The breakthrough came when we convinced not only Germany but also other contributors that this was not a project about guilt, but about the future.”

Times Online

Auschwitz

Donations to Auschwitz

BNP deputy leader abandons ‘own people’

BNP deputy leader Simon Darby

The British National Party has put forward its deputy leader as its general election candidate in Stoke-on-Trent Central, one of its top target seats nationally

Simon Darby will help the party launch its nationwide campaign to withdraw Britain’s troops from Afghanistan at a press conference in Stoke-on-Trent on Friday 15 January. Opposition to the global war against terrorism, in the form of the Afghanistan war, will be the BNP’s primary general election campaign theme, Nick Griffin, the party leader, announced at the end of December.

The press conference will also spearhead the BNP’s campaign for the three Stoke-on-Trent parliamentary seats and its local election effort, where the party hopes to defend three of its nine seats and make new council gains. Two BNP councillors, Michael Coleman and Melanie Baddeley, will stand for Parliament in Stoke South and Stoke North respectively.

Darby’s selection in Stoke Central was unexpected as he had already declared a firm intention to fight Dudley North, where he stood in the last general election. “Dudley North is where I will once again demonstrate my faith in my own people, a constituency where in 2005 I doubled my vote to 9.7%,” Darby wrote on 1 August 2009.

“Even if through their gullibility the people of this historic, English town manage to find themselves displaced, disenfranchised and replaced by the evil ambitions of the Islamo-Marxist monsters I will not have it said that nobody cared enough about them to give them a choice between effectively life or death.”

Darby’s concern for the people of Dudley North appears to have been overtaken by the prospect of greater personal glory in Stoke-on-Trent. He thinks there is “a real chance of a BNP victory here”, especially as the Conservatives have “decided to insult the electorate with a joke candidate – a Pakistani, belly-dancer”. It is unclear whether it is her ethnicity or her profession that upsets Darby more.

Darby claims that his selection for Stoke Central was “agreed some time ago”, but “kept under wraps”. That seems unlikely as Alby Walker had been expected to contest the seat until his sudden decision just before Christmas to quit as leader of the city’s BNP council group.
According to Darby, Walker has offered to act as his election agent and Ken Griffiths, a BNP Black Country activist, will step into the breach in Dudley North.

Hope not Hate

BBC: Radio 1 not tough enough on BNP

Editorial complaints unit says Newsbeat should have strongly challenged claims that Ashley Cole was not 'ethnically British'

The BBC has admitted it. Radio 1 was not tough enough when it interviewed two senior British National Party members who said footballer Ashley Cole was "not ethnically British".

The BBC's editorial complaints unit has ruled that the programme should not have allowed the pair to appear anonymously, and should have more strongly challenged their concept of British ethnicity. The interview, broadcast on the station's Newsbeat programme last year, introduced the men as "two young guys who are members of the BNP", when in fact they were Mark Collett, the party's publicity director, and Joseph Barber, in charge of the BNP record label, Great White Records.

During the two-minute interview, conducted by Newsbeat reporter Debbie Randle, Collett and Barber said that Cole, married to singer and The X Factor judge Cheryl Cole, was not "ethnically British", and spoke of him "coming to this country", even though he was born in London.

The Welsh secretary, Peter Hain, and others criticised the station for not identifying the pair and for not challenging their assertions in the interview that aired in the lead-up to BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC1's Question Time.

Last October, the Newsbeat editor, Rod McKenzie, defended the interview on his BBC blog after the BBC received "thousands" of texts, a "great many" of which were in support of the BNP. The complaints unit in its ruling published yesterday said two listeners had complained that the programme introduced the BNP members as "young guys who are members of the BNP" when they had important roles in the party.

"At the time of the interview, one of the interviewees was the BNP's publicity director and the other ran the record label which promotes and sells BNP CDs. Information about their status was relevant to listeners' understanding of their contributions, and should have been included," the unit said.

The complaints unit said that the interview was not confrontational and did include some challenges of the pair.

"However, the concept of British ethnicity, introduced by the interviewees in connection with the example of a black British-born footballer, was not tested in the way its controversial character called for," it added.

"The Newsbeat team were reminded of the need to ensure that listeners have enough information to assess the status and credentials of interviewees. The editor of Newsbeat also discussed with the team the need for rigorous challenge within interviews of this kind."

Guardian

Griffin launches election campaign by cynically exploiting war dead

Griffin smirks while the bodies of soldiers are brought home via Wootton Bassett

Immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan will be one of the primary themes of the British National Party’s general election campaign. Speaking on BNP television, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, sets out a blatantly populist stall for the election, which he believes will be called in late February or very early March.

Griffin hopes to exploit what he sees as an “enormous gap” between the views of the public and “politicians” on Afghanistan. The second main issue for the BNP, not surprisingly, will be “mass immigration and Islam in particular”, a subject at which he intends to go “hammer and tongs” to show the public that the BNP has not “gone soft”. He may also have an eye on limiting the damage to his party’s reputation among its racist supporters caused by his decision, forced by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), to open BNP membership to non-white people.

The third theme will be Europe. While recognising that Europe plays a lesser role in the general election in the minds of the public, Griffin explains that it is very important for a section of the public that the BNP aims to attract, namely those voters who are not sure whether to vote BNP or for the UK Independence Party.

As for the economy, the issue on which most people will focus, Griffin dismisses it on the grounds that it is “not feasible for us to get across the fact that a nationalist economic policy is the only way out of the mess”.

In other words, the BNP will go for votes by exploiting policies chosen for that purpose alone, rather than present a serious political programme to the electorate. Griffin appears to dismiss voters as too stupid to understand his economic arguments, though the reality is that the BNP’s mishmash of economic nationalism, fascism and opposition to trade would totally wreck the British economy.

Griffin states that his party is not yet ready for the election, though the main leaflets have been designed. There is also some fundraising to be done, he admits, before moving on quickly to another subject.

Money may well be a problem. The BNP went into the European election campaign in a dire financial state and spent large sums on its misnamed “Battle for Britain”. Before the election last June the party pledged that in the event of victory the party would contest every seat in the country in the general election.

That would commit the party to £325,000 in candidates’ deposits alone, much of which would be lost as the BNP will not overcome the 5% threshold for return of deposits in most constituencies. Probably realising the foolishness of standing hundreds of no hopers, Griffin backtracked, grabbing the opportunity to blame the three-month freeze on recruitment of new party members that he had agreed as a result of the EHRC’s court case.

Exaggerating wildly as usual, Griffin claimed the EHRC had cost the BNP a potential £105,000 in membership fees from 3,000 people keen to join up. “Those lost funds would have allowed the BNP to drive its way through the quiet Christmas period and launch an impressive General Election campaign the likes of which have never been seen in Britain,” wrote Griffin in an email to supporters on 12 December.

“As soon as we did make a breakthrough, the Equalities Commission pounced in what was a carefully calculated effort to make the BNP unable to contest every seat in the country,” the arch conspiracy theorist continued.

As a result the party had to “drastically scale back our General Election plans…If you want to blame someone, blame the tax-guzzling foreigner Trevor Phillips,” said the racist, before going on to appeal to existing BNP members to upgrade their membership to “gold” for “a measly £30” or take out life membership for a more painful £465.

One pot of money readily available to Griffin is the MEPs’ communications allowance for him and his fellow MEP, Andrew Brons. Each has £20,000 to spend on publicity about their work in the European Parliament and their constituency. While careful to acknowledge that the money cannot be used to promote the BNP, Griffin claims that when people hear of the two MEPs’ work, it will “have an effect”. The A3 folded glossy leaflets for the two constituencies will be ready for distribution “early in the new year”, revealed Griffin, providing “some cracking publicity”.

Leaflets will be an important part of the BNP election effort, but the BNP will not do telephone canvassing, Griffin promised, claiming that people do not like it. Instead BNP canvassers “will knock on doors”. Presumably he thinks voters are happier with a bunch of heavies at their front doors. Probably the real reasons the BNP has rejected telephone canvassing are that none of the sources of the necessary data would deal with the racist party and that the party’s canvassers sound even worse on the phone than on the doorstep.

In choosing Afghanistan as one of his election themes, Griffin must hope that voters will overlook the contradiction with the party’s much repeated claims that Islam is trying to colonise Britain and Europe and impose Sharia, and that the Muslim community harbours terrorists.

In his constituency newsletter Griffin denounces the war in Afghanistan arguing that British troops should only be sent to war “when the British people or British interests are being threatened”. Yet the BNP maintains that Islam has been engaged in a war on Western civilisation since its inception. Griffin lumps together the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the fact that, unlike the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan was a direct response to the terror attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001, with the aim, whether or not realistic, of preventing al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as an operational and training base.

Since then, Britain too has come under attack from al-Qaeda. Even where the individual terrorists were born in Britain, they were generally trained in or directed from Afghanistan or the Pakistan border area. There are good cases to be made that the war in Afghanistan may be unwinnable, or that Britain and the US have not committed sufficient resources, or that we should not support the Karzai administration, among other things, but it is unarguable that Islamist terrorism affects British people and British interests.

Islamophobia is one of the guiding principles of the BNP except when it conflicts with the latest attempt to win votes, it seems.

Rather than present a reasoned standpoint, Griffin resorts to emotion. Launching the party’s campaign to “Support our troops, bring them home” just before Christmas, Griffin described a “devastated, grieving mother” who spoke to him “recently” about the death of her “beautiful son” while serving in Afghanistan, and apparently implored Griffin to “help our boys out there or bring them home”.

“These are the words now carved into my heart, the words of a grieving mother, words that I will carry with me to my grave and words that made me take a solemn oath to do every-thing in my power to honour, support and protect our fighting heroes who have been abandoned both on the battlefields of Afghanistan and back here at home,” gushed Griffin.

He went on to accuse “Brown, Cameron and Clegg” of being “evil leaders … liars and con artists [who] started and backed the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan …”. That none of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg were leaders of their respective parties in 2001, and that Clegg has consistently opposed the war in Iraq, must have passed Griffin by in his excitement over a new cause for an appeal for money.

Announcing a “daring and innovative strategy to expose the hypocrisy, lies and cover-ups relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Griffin promises “a wave of activism, publicity material and direct action” which “will send shockwaves through the old parties and the traitors within the media”.

It will consist of four phases. Firstly a “full-colour well-designed 12-page brochure, detailing the crimes against our soldiers” will be sent to “every MP, MSP, MLA, and AM as well as every member of the House of Lords and also every registered journalist in the UK”. Secondly, the BNP will send “10,000 brochures to each key town and city in every one of The BNP’s 12 regions”.

The third stage will be, wait for it, a “nationwide truth tour” using “our very own ‘bought and paid for’ professional advertising lorry”. That’s the “truth truck”, better known as the lie lorry, a vehicle that the BNP does not own but leases from the hardline anti-abortion campaigner Jim Dowson. The tour will be followed by BNP TV films.

Anyone who thinks they have read this before would be right. The campaign has been recycled, almost word for word, from the BNP’s “Racism cuts both ways” initiative of autumn 2008. The 12-page outrage-ously Islamophobic brochure on that occasion listed 167 people whom the BNP alleged had been murdered as a result of anti-white racism, although only in a handful of the cases was there any clear indication of a racial motive and in several the perpetrator was white not black.

The BNP claims to be different. Too true. No other party would go into a general election on the back of racism, Islamophobia, a recycled clapped out campaign, nothing to say on the issues that really concern the electorate and a lead policy selected solely to pull votes from the UKIP.

Searchlight

Children create cross-cultural harmony

Where's the best place to fight the attitudes of the BNP? Why, in primary schools, of course

The children of Shirley Manor, a primary school in a run-down part of Bradford, an area far-right activists call a powerbase, are stunned. They have just returned from a visit to a school in another part of Bradford, where almost every pupil is Asian. "But actually, they like pizza," the children report. "And they watch television. And one has an Xbox!"

Almost all these children are white British; some of their parents have played a part in the British National party's electoral successes in Bradford. For most of them, it has been their first social interaction with British Muslims. Barriers came tumbling down as representatives of the two schools began to list the things they had in common. Friendships were formed. "When are we meeting them again?" is the question ringing in teachers' ears.

Shirley Manor is one of a host of primary schools across Britain emerging as an unexpected frontline in the fight to stem rising support for the BNP. As battle lines are drawn for local and national elections, schools in areas with BNP councillors, or where BNP candidates are finding support, are taking radical steps to change the hearts and minds of future generations of voters – and their parents.

Predominantly white schools in deprived areas as far apart as Bradford, Solihull and Essex – all regions where the BNP has gained a presence on local councils over the last decade – are initiating programmes of exchange visits with inner-city schools that are predominantly non-white. The visits provide stimulus for public art projects and performances, to which parents are invited, celebrating diversity in Britain and condemning racism.

The action is not nationally co-ordinated. A series of independent schemes have come to life during the current academic term, most aiming for completion before the mooted May elections.

For example, this job advert was found in November on the internet noticeboard artsjobs, for a creative practitioner to work on a project with pupils at a primary school in Solihull, West Midlands: "The school is in an extremely mono-cultural area of high deprivation ... The area has a BNP councillor." The project? To oversee a series of exchange visits with a Birmingham school that is "100% Muslim", then help pupils to create a piece of "outdoor/environmental art or sculpture", to go on public display by May 2010.

The school is located at the centre of a large estate in an area of Solihull called Chelmsley Wood. The ward's BNP councillor won his seat in 2006 and is due for re-election in May.

This year's school development plan at a primary school in Epping Forest, Essex, where seven BNP members now sit on the district council and where around 90% of the school's population is white British, stated: "[In] 2008/2009 there was a rise in the number of recorded racial incidents. We need to raise levels of tolerance for all children…". The school is forging links with a primary school in Enfield described as "mainly Turkish".

Both the Solihull and the Epping Forest schemes are new; the content is still being negotiated and organisers are treading softly – as one commented, "wary of upsetting the parents", in other words, the parents whose support enabled the BNP to gain a foothold in the first place.

In Bradford, Shirley Manor was running exchange programmes as long ago as 2004 – the year a BNP councillor won a seat in the ward of Wyke, where the school is located. "Our pupils never really mixed with Asian children," says Hannah Brown, a year 4 and 5 teacher who has overseen the exchange programme. "They think they're from another planet." She says some pupils arrive at her school with "some" racism entrenched, but also considerable confusion: "They hear words bandied about and aren't sure what they mean."

Shirley Manor is at the beginning of a new relationship with Thornbury primary, a considerably larger school nearer the city where most pupils are of Pakistani heritage and nearly all are learning English as an additional language. The schools have been brought together by the Schools Linking Network, an organisation based in Bradford that is now rolling out its services across Britain. With funding from the Department for Children, Schools and Families the SLN is underwriting the cost to both schools of managing an exchange programme, paying for additional staff and coaches.

The two schools will first come together in a community centre for a day of games and activities. Everything is designed to let the children discover parallels in their lives, such as a game where you have to perform a certain action if, say, you have two brothers. "By lunchtime you see groups forming," says Brown. "Like boys who support a certain football team. It's never forced."

She makes a point of discussing discriminatory language with the children before the trip, and will encourage them to ask the Thornbury pupils: "Is this word offensive to you?"

The pupils will meet again in subsequent weeks when they visit each other's schools. In previous years, deep connections have formed. Brown tells the story of two girls crying at the end of the final visit; they later met up outside school. Many continue to correspond by email. One legacy of these exchanges is wall displays that line the corridors of both schools. Pupils create cut-out paper dolls of each other. The multiracial dolls will be mounted side-by-side, their hands touching.

Previous exchange visits have changed children's outlook, says Brown, citing an activity in which pupils define what makes someone British. When first asked, the children of Shirley Manor tend to say you are British if you are born in Britain and speak English. Following the exchange visits last year, year 5 worked together to word a new conclusion: "If you are prepared to follow rules and be a good citizen, you deserve to be British."

Angus King, headteacher at Thornbury, says his predominantly Asian population can be as monocultural pupils as in Wyke. The implicit danger is militant Islam. "Extremism can exist in any group," he points out. "It comes from a lack of knowledge and understanding. The children at my school don't normally meet white British kids en masse. I think the big thing is to give children the opportunity to meet other children."

Brown says it is essential that this work is conducted at primary level. "If it's left too late, the views of those around them are imposed," she says.

But politics is never mentioned. "The project gives the children information and encourages them to make decisions," says Brown. "We would never say, 'You mustn't vote BNP'."

She is now making plans to hold an adult "linking night" next year, in which the parents of children at the two schools will meet each other for the first time.

Guardian

Anne Frank diary guardian Miep Gies dies

Miep Gies (left) with Otto Frank (centre) in October 1945

Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100

She and other employees of Anne Frank's father Otto supplied food to the family as they hid in a secret annex above the business premises in Amsterdam. Anne's diary of their life in hiding, which ended in betrayal, is one of the most famous records of the Holocaust. It was rescued by Mrs Gies, who kept it safe until after the war.

Miep Gies died in a nursing home after suffering a fall just before Christmas.

Speaking last year as she celebrated her 100th birthday, Mrs Gies played down her role, saying others had done far more to protect Jews in the Netherlands. She and her fellow employees kept Anne and the seven others supplied for two years, from 1942 to 1944. When the family were found by the authorities, they were deported, and Anne died of typhus in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen.

It was Mrs Gies who collected up Anne's papers and locked them away, hoping that one day she would be able to give them back to the girl. In the event, she returned them to Otto Frank, who survived the war, and helped him compile them into a diary that was published in 1947. It went on to sell tens of millions of copies in dozens of languages.

Mrs Gies became a kind of ambassador for the diary, travelling to talk about Anne Frank and her experiences, campaigning against Holocaust denial and refuting allegations that the diary was a forgery. For her efforts to protect the Franks and to preserve their memory, Mrs Gies won many accolades.

In an interview from 1998, published on the annefrank website, Miep Gies says she thought it "perfectly natural" to help Anne and the seven others despite the penalties she could have suffered under the Nazi occupation.

"They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn..." she says. "We did our duty as human beings: helping people in need."

Her role was, she recalls, to fetch vegetables and meat while others supplied bread or books. Her memory of Anne is of having the feeling she was "speaking to an adult".

"I'd say to myself, 'My goodness, child, so young and talking like that already'," she says in the interview. She believes that she once came across Anne writing the diary.

"It was a very uncomfortable situation," she says. "I tried to decide what to do. Should I walk away or go to her? At that moment she glanced at me, with a look that I'll never forget. This wasn't the Anne I knew, that friendly, charming child. She looked at me with anger, rage. Then Anne stood up, slammed her diary shut and glared at me with great condescension. 'Yes,' she said, 'I'm writing about you, too.' I didn't know what to say. The only thing I could manage was: 'That ought to be interesting.'"

Mrs Gies also remembers the day the Franks were taken away and how she went up into the empty annex to find the pages of the diary lying on the floor. Removing the pages, she did not read them immediately, telling herself at the time: "These may belong to a child, but even children have a right to privacy."

BBC

Miep Gies

Anne Frank Museum

Wootton Bassett fury at today's march rumours

Townspeople in Wootton Bassett have reacted angrily to fears the threatened extremist Islamic march was to happen in the town today.

Rumours spread that people supporting the march were on their way to the town from London and some of those opposed gathered in pubs in the town to protest.

Wiltshire councillor Allison Bucknell, whose husband Steve is Mayor of Wootton Bassett said: "There was a rumour something was going to happen so the police had to have a presence in the town. But it has all come to nothing and all it has done is cost the tax payer a lot of money."

She said a group of people described as football supporters had gathered to counter any march.

Coun Bucknell said: "If this march was to go ahead ordinary Wootton Bassett people would close their doors and stay inside but the problem is there are plenty of other people who say they want to defend Wootton Bassett and there is where the trouble could start. It would be far better to ignore the extremists altogether."

She praised the handful of muslim people who live in Wootton Bassett who have spoken out eloquently to put over the views of moderate Islamics.

"What they have said has been very sensible. They are part of the community and know Wootton Bassett but this threat of an extremist march doesn't help anyone. They have had their five minutes of publicity they should leave it alone now."

Wiltshire Police today wanted to say little about the rumours. A statement said the force was aware of a march happening imminently and said it was prepared to react.

It is understood overtime will have to be paid to officers whose shift should have ended at 4pm but were told to remain on standby.

One man, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "We are here today because we heard through social networking sites that the march would take place today. "It may have been a wasted journey for all of us, and if that is the case, we want to say that we will be here again next time we hear that it is taking place." A police spokesman said the operation was being led by Superintendant Gavin Williams. Police in cars have been in the town since later morning after information was picked up on Facebook but no riot vans were in position. These would have been ready if needed. The people who turned up in the town to protest against the march were from the English Defence League.

This is Wiltshire

Campaigners ask capital’s pubs to ban far-right group

Campaigners battling the Scottish Defence League are to ask every pub in Edinburgh to ban members of the far-right group on the day of their coming protest in the capital

The Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance hopes to disrupt the SDL’s usual tactics, which involve congregating in a pub before marching on a city. Several pubs have already vowed to ban any SDL supporters from their premises and one branch of national chain Wetherspoons has reportedly agreed to beef up its security ahead of the march, which takes place in the capital on February 20. The Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance has already written to some 100 pubs in the city, and this week will write to the 200 others in Edinburgh.

A spokesman for the Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance, who claimed he was too scared of reprisals from the SDL to give his name, said: “We’re a bunch of local people who hate racism and don’t want these people to march through our streets. We want to urge people to get involved in the planning of a reaction to the protest of the racist Scottish Defence League.”

The letter they have already sent to pubs features pictures from previous protests, depicting a gang of men in balaclavas and English football tops as well as shots from another demonstration of two men displaying an English flag near the entrance to a pub in Sheffield.

The letter said: “We are writing to inform you that ‘Scottish’ Defence League thugs may gather and get drunk in your pub before their racist demonstration. This may cause problems for renewing your licence, and may result in a consumer boycott. We are sure that your pub is welcoming to anyone of any ethnic background, however your hospitality may be taken advantage of on the 20th of February, when the ‘Scottish’ Defence League is planning a march in Edinburgh.”

The SDL is an off-shoot of the English Defence League, an organisation that exists to challenge the perceived threat of extremist Islam. They have led several marches on cities around Britain, including Glasgow, where activists were penned into a pub and briefly allowed to protest before being bussed off by police. An unprecedented cross-party alliance gathered to oppose them in Glasgow, under the banner of Scotland United.

An SDL representative, who goes by the name of Don, said the group would not be intimidated by anti-fascist measures to ban them from city-centre pubs. Don said: “Who are the fascists, telling people they can’t go into a public house? On what basis can you ban a group of people from going into a pub? These pubs are scared of these people, who come up and smash them up if they are not intimidated enough to close. No matter what happens we’ll be there in Edinburgh.”

He added that the decision to meet in pubs was taken for “safety reasons” and claimed SDL supporters were better off inside as there were opponents on the streets who wanted to attack them.

The Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance denied it would use any force or try to intimidate public houses. Several pubs have already agreed to ban SDL supporters in the case of any trouble. Others are consulting their area manager to discuss a ban. The manager of one well-known bar said: “It’s all about the safety of our team and customers.”

Wetherspoons in George Street is to put on extra security on the day, mindful that the EDL have used their premises as meeting points during previous demonstrations. But a spokesman for Wetherspoons said they would allow anyone in, as long as there was no trouble.

He said: “You can’t stop someone coming in because of their views – you’d have empty pubs. Where would you stop? What anti-fascists think is right, corporations don’t. Like any right-minded people, we don’t agree with the EDL or the SDL. But if their supporters come to our pub and don’t cause trouble, we won’t turn them away. If they misbehave, we will ask them to leave.”

Sunday Herald

BNP crisis as Nick Griffin faces jail over whites-only policy

The British National Party is facing a crisis in the run-up to the general election after it emerged that Nick Griffin, its leader, could be jailed over its illegal “whites only” membership policy.

Whitehall officials believe Griffin will be unable to comply in time with a court order forcing him to change the BNP’s constitution to admit Asians, blacks and members of other ethnic minorities.

They say the BNP’s membership is not due to vote on the constitutional change until after the court deadline expires towards the end of this month. Trevor Phillips, head of the government’s equalities watchdog, which won the legal ruling three months ago, has instructed his lawyers to be ready to ask the court to impose crippling sanctions, including a heavy fine or possible jail term against Griffin and Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader.

If successful, the move could paralyse the right-wing party at a time when many at Westminster believe it is on the verge of winning its first seat in parliament with the support of disillusioned former Labour and Tory voters.

Officials question whether the head of a political party who has been imprisoned, fined or has had his assets sequestrated could continue to be its leader.

“The BNP is very much Nick Griffin’s party,” said one official. “Were he forced to stand down three months before an election, then what are the prospects for the party? He could be replaced by someone who was much more hardcore. They would potentially be in disarray.”

The legal action began last year when the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued county court proceedings against Griffin, Darby and Tanya Lumby, another senior BNP official. The watchdog argued that the BNP’s constitution was unlawful because it restricted membership to particular ethnic groups and those whose skin colour is white.

Last October Judge Paul Collins agreed and awarded costs against the party. Griffin was forced to order a freeze on membership applications. The court gave him until January 28 to persuade the party to change its constitution and allow non-whites to join. However, Griffin is unlikely to be able to deliver the change in time.

Times Online

Dishonest BNP spins article by George Carey and deliberately misquotes him

The BNP likes to present itself as a party that tells the truth, unlike mainstream political parties that rely on lies, misrepresentation and spin, but have yet again demonstrated that this is far from the case.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, recently wrote an article for the Times on immigration and the rise of the BNP. Carey was immediately denounced by the BNP Legal Director as an ‘idiot’ working for ‘Zionists’, but the BNP’s official statement on the article has wisely avoided following Barnes’s line (as it usually does). The BNP website’s take on Carey’s article (‘Lord Carey predicts BNP victory in Dagenham’) puts a typically dishonest spin on what he actually said. From the BNP’s commentary, you’d think Carey was on the verge of joining the party and it appears that he has endorsed them.

BNP website:

Writing in The Times this morning Lord Carey warns:

“The fact is that a rise in the UK population by ten million in two decades will put our nation’s resources under considerable strain, stretching almost to breaking point the enormous reserves of tolerance and generosity of the British people. Failure to take that action could be seriously damaging to the future harmony of our society.”

He also acknowledges that the million people who voted for the British National Party at the European Elections had genuine concerns about both overpopulation and the ability of this nation to integrate new communities whose values are sometimes very different, even antithetical, to our own.

What Carey said:

The fact is that a rise in the UK population by ten million in two decades will put our nation’s resources under considerable strain, stretching almost to breaking point the enormous reserves of tolerance and generosity of the British people.

The declaration by no means spells out a halt to immigration. In fact we welcome the contribution of both economic migrants and asylum seekers to our lively cosmopolitan culture. But we urge a return to the levels of the early 1990s, about 40,000, compared with 163,000 in 2008. Failure to take that action could be seriously damaging to the future harmony of our society.

Last year nearly a million votes were cast for the British National Party. We cannot ignore the fact that such far-right groups exploit genuine concerns about both overpopulation and the ability of this nation to integrate new communities whose values are sometimes very different, even antithetical, to our own.

BNP website:

He then went even further, and predicted that the British National Party could win the parliamentary seat of Dagenham at the General Election.

He told the readers of Britain’s premier newspaper:

“In Dagenham, where I was brought up, the white working-class electorate, alienated by far-reaching social change and largely ignored by the mainstream parties, could vote for a BNP Member of Parliament.”

He said that people were supporting the BNP because it was the only political party echoing the sense of unfairness that many people felt about immigrants, economic migrants and bogus asylum seekers coming to Britain and availing themselves of our social services and our jobs.

What Carey said:

In Dagenham, where I was brought up, there is a very real danger that a white working-class electorate, alienated by far-reaching social change and largely ignored by the mainstream parties, could vote for a BNP Member of Parliament. This would be a tragedy in our long history of parliamentary democracy. Yet we play into the hands of the far Right if we do not seriously address the concerns that have led to some otherwise decent people supporting modern-day fascism.

For some reason, the BNP’s statement fails to offer a link to Carey’s article. I wonder why that is?

Lest there be any doubt about Carey’s view of the BNP, here’s what he told the News of the World in October 2009:

To hear the phrase “Christian Britain” coming from the mouth of Nick Griffin made me shudder. It was the most chilling moment of Question Time, perhaps better described as the Nick Griffin Show.

And what a pity that none of the other panelists challenged Griffin’s deceitful attempt to align his despicable policies with Christianity. This squalid racist must not be allowed to hijack one of the world’s great religions.

All of us who believe in tolerance and decency must stand shoulder-to-shoulder in rejection of Griffin’s notion that “Christianity” has any place in his bigotry. I tend to agree that the BBC was mistaken to give the BNP such prominence. To use Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, it was the “oxygen of publicity” that propelled the insignificant and undeserving party into the Big Time. The BBC’s Director General errs in arguing that in a democracy all views should be heard. The views of the BNP are not simply false, they are dangerous, indeed irredeemably evil.

Nevertheless, ‘Any Questions’ DID expose Nick Griffin’s views to public scrutiny. What we saw on our screens was a 21st Century pipsqueak heir to Hitler and Mosley. If the public believed beforehand that support for the BNP was a protest vote against remote or out of touch politicians, they were proved wrong. The BNP leader was unveiled as a sly, shifty figure who would hide unpalatable truths, and cynically spin regardless of the truth, for the sake of votes and funds.

Quite so.

Edmund Standing

BNP admits lying to raise money

The British National Party’s deputy leader has admitted that the party lies to gain financial advantage

A document filed with the Electoral Commission showed that the BNP exaggerated its spending during the European election, in which it gained two seats.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has often said the party spent more than £500,000 on the campaign, especially when asking his members and supporters for more money. But figures released by the Electoral Commission this week show that the fascist party spent just £282,843, only £54,000 more than it did during 2004.

Simon Darby, Griffin’s deputy, told a reporter from The Times that the party needed to exaggerate because “if we had said we wanted to spend 10p, it wouldn’t do us any good … there’s a bit of hyperbole with politics”. He refused to comment further on the discrepancy, saying that it was not a “worthy question”.

For “hyperbole” read “lie”.

During the European election campaign the party claimed to have met its fundraising target of £390,000. An email on 22 May, two weeks before polling day, announced that the party had only £17,495 still to go. There was also a thermometer-style graphic on the party’s website, which eventually reached the top after unsteady progress. Those who gave in response to the numerous calls for donations will be wondering whether these figures were another lie or, if true, what Griffin did with the rest of the money.

One clue may be the rumour, currently doing the rounds on fascist and anti-fascist forums, that the BNP paid “£336,208 in the first 11 months of 2009 to three Dowson controlled entities”.

We have no way of judging the truth of this figure, to which only a handful of people in the BNP or around Jim Dowson, would have access, but we have long maintained that Dowson, a militant anti-abortion campaigner with a string of criminal convictions, who provides management and fundraising services to the BNP, has “bought” the party. It is Dowson who runs the BNP’s main call centre in Belfast, owns the “truth truck” advertising lorry, which Griffin regularly lies that the BNP has “bought and paid for”, and arranged the printing of the party’s 28 million European election leaflets last year.

Darby, probably realising that his anger at being asked probing questions by the Times journalist, whom Searchlight knows to be highly professional, had led him to speak unwisely, later claimed, amid a string of insults, that she had “twisted and distorted” his words. He and Griffin now refuse to speak to her.

Meanwhile the BNP has tried to divert attention from the lie by claiming that it ran a more efficient campaign than the four bigger parties in terms of amount spent per vote received. Its £282,843 equated to 29p per vote, compared to 51p for the UK Independence Party and higher amounts for the three main parties. Naturally the party failed to explain why it had claimed spending of £500,000, which would have been similar to the UKIP’s cost per vote. And it was no surprise that supporters commenting on the website article also avoided the awkward question and had nothing but praise for the party.

Nor has anyone on the BNP website expressed any concern that the party’s latest accounts, covering 2008, do not comply with the requirements of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000, as the party did not maintain adequate financial records. The BNP’s former treasurer may yet face prosecution for this.

HOPE not hate

Swedish suspect says he was middleman in Auschwitz sign theft

The sign "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work
makes you free") is shown by Malopolska police in Krakow

A former Swedish neo-Nazi suspected of involvement in the theft of the infamous Nazi German "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from Auschwitz said Thursday he was a middleman in the robbery.

"My role was to go get the sign in Poland. I was the middleman and was supposed to take care of the sale," the man, whose name was not disclosed, told Swedish daily Expressen. The paper referred to the man only as "a former Nazi leader."

The Polish daily Fakt identified the man as Anders Hoegstroem, who in 1994 founded the National Socialist Front, a Swedish neo-Nazi movement he headed for five years before quitting. Another Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, referred in its article to "Anders H."

After leaving his party, Hoegstroem, 33, claimed he distanced himself from the movement and joined an association called Exit which helps youths quit far-right movements, according to Swedish media.

Polish prosecutors said Wednesday they wanted to question three Swedish residents over the December 18 theft of the death camp sign, without revealing their names. Five Poles have already been arrested. The men are charged with theft and damage and face up to 10 years in prison.

According to Expressen, the "former Nazi leader" claimed the sign was to be sold for several million kronor (hundreds of thousands of euros/dollars) which was to be used to finance bombings against the Swedish parliament and government.

"But that was not something I wanted to be involved in or carry out, in any way," he told the paper.

"I contacted the police immediately, as soon as the sign was stolen, and gave them all the information I had. I haven't committed any crime. I was the one who saw to it that the sign was found," he added.

Police recovered the five-metre (16-foot) metal sign -- which means "Work Will Set You Free" in German -- on December 20 in northern Poland and arrested the five Polish men. The sign had been cut into three pieces.

The sign above Auschwitz's gateway has long symbolised the horror of the camp, created by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland in 1940 and in operation until Soviet troops liberated it in 1945.

Canada.com